Democracy is the best form of government, well that’s what my venerated Civics teacher injected me in school and I (we were) was not evolved enough to question this lesson ever, it was an axiom! It was the truth.
And my teacher had his own reasons to make a blanket and gospel statement like that. He had a different context and he grew up in a completely alien world – a world these days we marvel through intense World War movies. They grew through the aftermath of 2 World Wars, Power Blocs, Iron Curtain, intense Cold War and new found procrastinated freedom from the British (to be only imprisoned by the elected government, a few from that generation realised it though). Well Freedom and Democracy became primal and synonymous to him and thus propagated he ‘Democracy is the best form of government’.
We live in a new connected, critical World! We see things and question them not necessarily to get answers though! Democracy has befuddled me for a while now.
Elect me to serve you – I find this notion wiered and convoluted. To get to a position of responsibility, in a matured world you either are selected or elected (In alternate world you can make wars, be a dynast, beat others in a ring and follow any of the umpteen ways to get there). Getting selected requires compliance and sticking to a set of KRAs post selections. The motivation is clear, the position in most parts pays for you and your dependents and in some parts gives you psychological satiation of making contribution to a better humankind – however meager the contribution might be.
Getting elected is a complete hyperbole, you find out issues, promise to resolve them, fight for a bigger cause and work really hard to earn that position of responsibility without any or little assurance. In that sense, what a politician does is truly ‘entrepreneurial’. He makes investment worth time and money and hopes to gain a windfall return. The nature of return is what bothers me. An entrepreneur seeks mostly monetary return, everything else is a bi-product. But then what does a politician seek post election – serving the people is definitely not at the top of the list, that’s a hermit’s job.
What else it is – Name & fame, power, respect, money, satisfaction, all of these? I am not sure.
What this equivocality does is, introduces the classic Principal-Agent problem in the equation.
When a Principal (a promoter or a founder in a commercial business of course) appoints an Agent, (a professional manager who works with principal to earn his livelihood) the rational is unequivocal – make money or sell more units or expand the footprint of the origanization and so on.
The objectives are unequivocal, the rules of engagement are laid out coherently. The principal generally decides on rules of engagement for a predefined period and the agent diligently follows it so that mutual objectives for win-win are met. Since we have already stretched to say in part that politicians are closer to enterpreneurs and hence are equivalent of Principals upon election, the bureacrats hence are the agents who are fiduciaries to the principal. We have also said that efficiency of business conduct comes when the intent of the principal is crystal clear to the agent. But in democracy, atleast the one we live in – we haven’t been able to clearly see the intent of the one who intends to be elected, remember Name & fame, power, respect, money, satisfaction, all of these?
So how can one expect the agents to be effective, their KRAs are nebulous and scalar. At best defined for a very limited period of time.
Welfare or Populism – The cornerstone of democracy is welfare of the subjects without any prejudice or discrimination. I see this tenet getting eroded by populism. Agree, there is a very fine line between welfare and populism and in lot of cases what’s for welfare will be popular but it’s not as straight as it looks. The recent GST reform is for welfare but hasn’t been unanimously popular.
Having made this point, the democractically elected govt in most cases looks to be popular and paints the entire geography and demographics with the same brush. There are exceptions and I am making a generalist statement. A case in point being the poor street infrastructure of the millenium city Gurgaon. Despite being a smaller geography, this contributes disproportionately high revenue to the state and to the government. Improvement in infra will reduce commute hassles, keep human resources in better and happier state of mind which in turn will improve productivity, increased productivity will result in higher revenues, the revenue that is life and blood for the development of a much larger geography, this is simple Social Cost Benefit Analysis.
Shouldn’t in that case Gurgaon be prioritised over the rest of the state. Might not be extremely popular to start with but definitely has intent of a larger welfare.
Stretching the logical even further, why can’t states with higher contributions have higher proportionate weight to their votes. This might just seem outrageous but definitely worth a look in.
Despite evident fallacies, democracy is what subjects make of it. It can be what subjects want it to be it – a tool of creation or a weapon of anarchy. Let’s make the best of it.
Long live Democracy, for the hope of common man rests on it.
Taking a cue from the great R K Laxman.
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